A series of mass shootings have occurred across the United States in recent years.A mass shooting is described as an accident in which four or more people are unfairly killed with a firearm.According to some people, mass shootings have a huge negative effect on the victims and their families.In this analysis, the causes and impact of mass shootings on people are explored over the period of 1966 and 2017.The dataset consists of 323 observations and 21 variables, which describe the mass shooting incidents in the United States of America. The description of prominent variables involved in the analysis are as follows.

  1. State – State of the location
  2. Date – The incident date
  3. Incident Area- Site of the Incident.
  4. Open Close Location – Whether the shoot occurred indoors or outdoors.
  5. Target – Who the victims of the shoot were.
  6. Cause – The reason due to which the offender carried out the shoot.
  7. Fatalities – Number of deaths occurred.
  8. Injured - number of victims injured.
  9. Total Victims – count of affected people during the shoots.
  10. Age – Age of the perpetrator.
  11. Mental Health issues – Describes the mental condition of the shooter.
  12. Race – Race of the shooter.
  13. Gender – Gender of the Shooter.

The interactive map describes the number of fatalities in each incident that has occurred over the states of the USA. It can be seen that in large number of incidents, the fatalities were less than 20 , however the number of incidents where the deaths are between 20 and 40 cannot be disregarded. There are not many incidents where the count of casualties increased beyond 40.

The above bar plot indicates that in 140 out of the total mass shootings, the target of the shooters were random people. In the other cases, the targets were family members, co-workers, students and teachers. Researchers are examining the mental condition of young assassins for warning signs that may help avoid likely tragedies, following a recent outbreak of school shootings.

The pie chart gives information about the Race of the shooters. Majority of the shooters are whites and the next come the blacks and other race people.Latinos and Asian americans carried out less shoots when compraed to whites and blacks.

From the graph, we can infer that large part of the mass shootings took place at home. Workplace, school and church are the other prominent locations where the shootings took place. Since most offenders have a history of mental illness or domestic violence, mandatory background checks and strict laws can be useful in keeping weapons out of the hands of these shooters.

The scatterplot reveals that primary proportion of the shooters are male and the highest number of shootings took place because the shooters were psycho or terrorists.Though the number of females are significantly low when compared to the males, the cause was either psycho or terrorism.Terrorism has evolved into a global epidemic capable of creating havoc and destruction anywhere.

The boxplot describes the age of the shooter and if the offender had any mental health issues.In most of the cases , the mental condition of the assasins was unknown.The median age shooters who had mental health issues is 30 years and who did not have any issues is 35 years. However, majority of the shooters are in the age group 20-45.

In the histogram, it can be noticed that in 298 shoots, no policemen were killed.In 10 incidents, 1 policeman was killed and in 4 cases, 3 policemen were killed by the shooters.

Data shows that people who suffer from mental illnesses are more likely than those who do not to commit acts of mass shootings.Although mental illness may play a role, it is not observed to be the primary cause.There are many factors which enable the shooter to take the step.

The employment status of many of the shooters is ot available. Out of the available numbers, 42 of them are employed and 25 of them are unemployed.

CONCLUSION:

The following insights can be gained from the above analysis. Majority of the shooters are white males in the age group 20-45 and majority of them suffer from mental disorders.Significant reasons for the shoots are terrorism, psycho, anger and frustration.A study states that two thirds of the americans rejected that a gun was required to protect their liberty.Huge support was recieved for restricting firearms which could prevent mass shootings.It is believed that focussing on gun laws and mental health of people helps in improving the situation.

References:

Murat Haner, Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson, Alexander L. Burton & Teresa C. Kulig (2019) Price of Liberty or Never Again: Americans’ Views on Preventing Mass Murder, Justice Evaluation Journal, 2:1, 50-72, DOI: